Rule  12
by Heart Torn Out
Summary: NCIS/SPN fusion. Dean thought there was only Rule # 12 in the way of him and Cas. But he was wrong. So very, very wrong. Sabriel Pre-slash, established Destiel,established Bobby/Ellen and established Jo/Ash
1. Ain't That The Way The Wind Blows?

**So I had this brilliant idea to do a fusion of Supernatural and NCIS. Don't know if its been done, don't really care. So. This is who everyone is.**

**Dean: Tony**

**Cas: Ziva**

**Sam: McGee**

**Bobby: Gibbs**

**Ellen: Director Jenny**

**Gabe: Ducky**

**Chuck: Jimmy Palmer**

**Becky: Cashier**

**Jo: Abbey (no goth though)**

**Ash: RRCG (Random Resident Computer Genius)**

**Crowley: Kort ( or whoever that CIA agent with the accents' name is)**

**So. This has been sitting on my dash for-fucking-ever. So i was determined to finish today. And i did... well, sorta...**

**Just read it.**

**Also: I experimented with present tense, so yay me for being adventurous. I quite enjoyed it actually.**

**Dean: I'm a punk?**

**Cas: Be grateful. I am a woman.**

**Sam: I'm a nerd. **

**Dean: Too late, Sammy, you already are.**

**Gabe: I'm a doctor! YEAY! 8D**

**Eve: *facepalm* **

**So this is part of my reintegration into ffn program. I've been away for so long. I missed you all.**

**Discalimer: I don't own SPN or NCIS. Yes I love the abrv.**

**Current Song: Allemande by: Keane (This should warn you)**

**Current Thought: There is a thunderstorm outside and my dog is hiding under my twin's chair. Is priceless, no?**

* * *

><p><strong>Rule #12<strong>

Dean loves his job; don't get him wrong, he does. He works for NCIS. It's his fucking dream job. So of course he loves it. And it has its perks of course. One being he had moved to Maryland, another that Sammy had followed and was now on his team. Their mother had even moved down to DC to be closer to them, and the good Lord knows she's proud. Their dad wasn't a war hero for nothing.

So yeah. Dean loves his job. It's probably the best job in the world to be a Special Agent for NCIS. And of course, the people he works with are absolutely amazing. There's Sammy, his own little brother, their resident probey and computer geek genius. And there's him of course. Then there's their boss, the one and only Robert Steven Singer, nick-named Bobby, or in there case, just plain old 'Boss'. Down in the lab is Jo Harvelle, their crazy forensic scientist. She's tougher than nails, but weirdly bubbly. Down in the morgue they have Gabriel Mallard. 'Course they just call him Gabe. And it should disturb them by how much he loves to cut open dead people, but Dean's been here long enough that that doesn't really faze him. It freaks out Chuck though, Gabe's apprentice and assistant. Especially when Gabe starts talking to the dead person. Now that Dean thinks about it, that really freaks him out too, and he suspects Gabe does that on purpose.

Anyway, awesome people. Hell, even the Director is awesome. Director Ellen Harvelle – yes, she's Jo's mom- is as no nonsense as her daughter, and deceased Director husband before her. Dean wasn't around when William 'Bill' Harvelle was Director, but Bobby was. Apparently, the man was a legend. Funny how Dean's never heard of him. But he'll never say that to Jo.

And then, of course, there's _him_, Castiel Novak, the agent that's working for them, replacing one of their own. Dean tries not to think of Lisa Braedon, the previous agent in Castiel's seat. She had died on a mission, bullet between the eyes. She had been his partner. It's been hard. He's been struggling with her death.

Of course that all changed when Castiel walked in. Deadly, lethal and hot as Hell, he'd caught Dean's attention. He was from the Mossad, or rather, Dean has to correct himself, his family ran the Mossad, a government agency from Israel. Castiel has cool blue eyes, dark brown almost black hair and fair skin. Dean is surprised he doesn't just burn up in the Israeli sun. But Cas, he knows, is a trained killer. And his new partner, though it's been over four years now and hell, Cas is his partner in more ways than one.

Dean realized it three years ago. It was a deep cover mission and their cover had been blown. He was shot, on the ground, totally useless. And Cas was attacked by the rogue Marine they had been tracking down. After a year of getting close to him, Dean had felt the worst bout of panic hit him. All he saw was this scrawny little, Jewish guy slammed into a wall by a trained U.S. Marine that looked like he was on steroids and Dean hadn't thought twice of moving even though he had a bullet in his chest.

Cas though, was more than capable. He'd turned on the man, slammed him into the wall and shoved him so that he was propelled back. The Marine had come at Cas and the smaller man had just punched him clear in the face. A knee to the nose, gut and groin had the Marine doubled over, and an elbow to the solar plexus and face, breaking his nose completely, had knocked the guy out cold and taken care of that.

Cas had to make it worse though, by running over to Dean and leveling him up on his lap, Dean's head cushioned on his thighs. And of course he was running his hands through Dean's short hair and calling up back-up at the same time. Dean was surprised that the guy who never showed emotion was holding onto him with shaking hands and putting painful pressure on the leaking wound as Dean's life force ebbed out of him. Cas had kept talking to him, his bright blue eyes wide, kept saying, "Dean, don't close your eyes. Don't close them. Come on Dean , hold on." Of course, Dean couldn't control himself as his body shut down on itself and he started slipping. The hold on him had become steel-like and Castiel had just blurted, "Dean, _no_! You can't leave me, you _can't_. I _need_ you Dean. I. Need. _You_." He weaved their fingers together with one hand.

And Dean had kept his eyes wide open after that and clung like a cretin until the EMTs reached them and got him on a gurney. Castiel hadn't said a word after that, just kept holding his hand, never leaving his side, riding to the hospital with him, even as the other EMTs had kept checking him for injury or worse.

Dean was pretty sure, even now as he thinks about it, that one rooky EMT had been about to ask Cas to let go of his hand on the ride there when a superior had smacked him and said, "Oh no you don't. They're partners. You leave 'em alone."

And Dean's pretty sure that was the moment he realized that Cas and him were partners in every definition of the word.

Of course, after Sam ripped him a knew one, Bobby threatened to shoot him in the ass, Ellen rolled her eyes at him, his mother almost had a heart attack, Jo brought him dead flowers, Chuck fidgeted his way in and out, and Gabe brought him candy that he had found on one of his corpses, Dean had given Cas one look and said, "I need you too, you know."

After that, things had just happened and he found himself stealing kisses with Cas in the bathrooms at work, holding his hand under the table at staff meetings and smiling at him from across the cubicle. Yes, it was very high school; at first. Because then, Castiel had to move apartments and it happened that they now lived in the same building. A few weeks later, and Castiel and Dean lived out of each others pockets. Cas's apartment was across from his, but the Mossad agent barely even went in there unless it was to feed his only cat, Ana, who was a bright red color. He lived with Dean, slept in his bed with him, ate his food (and _never_ replaced it), pretty much lived there with him without the beauty of his name on the door. People at work knew they lived in the same building, and they chalked up Dean giving Cas rides to and from work as car-pooling since they lived so damn close.

Dean realizes as he thinks about all of this that it's a shame that he and Cas have to keep their relationship under wraps. Everyone thinks he's too immature and that Cas isn't social enough to hold a relationship with anyone. People may wonder why they don't tell anyone and its not that they work together. Its one of Singer's rules. See, Bobby had a wife, several actually, but his first one was the only one who died, Karen, and everyone knows he'll never recover completely from that. But the woman was amazing and she had these Rules. And after she died, Bobby memorized them all and had all his team members memorize them all and follow them. And Rule #12? Never date a co-worker.

But Dean doesn't think what he and Cas have is dating anymore. It's so much more than that. He's thought so ever since last year...

Well, Cas was only temporarily with NCIS last year, a liaison from the Mossad. But things had been getting stressed with his familial ties and it had been going bad for Cas. They had actually gotten into a fight over it.

"Cas, what the hell is your problem?" Dean had asked.

To which Castiel had replied, "My family Dean. They are my _family_. But they're making everything so difficult. They want me back with the Mossad, back in Israel. But I don't want to go."

"Then don't! Leave them!" Dean had exclaimed fearfully. He hadn't been able to stomach the thought of Cas leaving back then, and as sits here thinking now, he still can't.

Anyway, Cas had given him the kicked puppy look and said, "I can't. They're my family!"

"And what am I?" Dean had said angrily, and as he thinks of it now, he cringes. Because really, that had been kind of a dick move. He knew Castiel cared about him. He just wanted the satisfaction of hearing it.

Instead, Cas had given him one look and then, left. He'd walked right out of their (it'd been theirs since Cas had moved in across from him) apartment and out of the building. Dean had thought he just wanted some air. But when Cas hadn't come in the next day and Bobby hadn't said a word in edgewise, Dean had known something was up.

Cas was gone for two weeks, and Dean still remembers them to be the two worst weeks of his life. He hates sleeping alone, especially knowing that Cas isn't there, and it had been horrible. He'd worried and worried and tried to get more information, but to no avail. Hell, even Sam had seen that there was something up with him, but couldn't get his older brother to talk.

Two weeks after Cas left, Dean was walking to the elevator, regretting everything he had said. He pressed the down button, knowing it was past midnight and he'd need to be up in a few hours, knowing he wouldn't sleep a wink despite that knowledge, when the elevator dinged and opened. And Cas fell right on top of him. He was bruised and cut up, tired and needed a shave, but the first thing he said was, "I'm not Mossad anymore."

Dean hadn't known what to do but yell for help. Thankfully, Bobby was still there, as was Ellen and Gabriel, and Cas had been checked out without having to go to a hospital. "Don't leave him alone tonight," Gabe had told him.

"I wasn't planning on it," Dean had responded and drove them home. He was silent the whole drive there, not even looking at Cas, because seriously? They'd known each other three years at that point, been together for two and then Cas had up and disappeared? Had he thought that Dean wouldn't care? Because he had, he really had, and he'd been screwed up over it.

As soon as they made it into the apartment though, Castiel had gone straight for the bedroom. Dean had followed quietly and been shocked when Castiel had dragged out the spare suitcase and started to fill it up with his clothes (Cas had moved his stuff in there right in the beginning). Dean remembers being so shocked that all he could think to say was, "You're leaving?"

And Castiel had turned around and given him a confused look. "Don't you want me too? I took your silence in the car to mean that I wasn't welcome anymore."

And Dean had kicked the suitcase off their bed, shoved Castiel down on top of it, and straddled his thin waist with his thighs. "You stupid, idiotic, retard of a _man_. I would call you gay or a Jew, but they actually apply to you." And with that, he had kissed Cas so hard he tasted blood in his mouth and knew he had reopened the split in Cas's lip. He honestly didn't care.

"I don't understand," Cas had mumbled against his mouth and Dean had groaned in impatience.

"I was fucking worried about you, you dumbass. You were gone for so long. And then you pop back in all bloodied and beat to hell, and say, 'oh, by the way, I left the family business, thought I should let you know', and you expect me to what? Kick you out of the apartment? The fuck is wrong with you?"

Dean remembers Castiel's confused face. It had been adorable back then, and it still was now. And it never failed to get to Dean that Cas had actually thought Dean was going to just _leave_ him.

Either way, Castiel hadn't responded, just looked away. Dean had forced his face to look at him and had said with all seriousness, "Look at me. Hey, look. At. Me." And Castiel had. Then he'd gone on to say, "You're not going anywhere. Not if I can help it, which, I can. You don't get to walk away."

And Castiel had just nodded and let a few tears slip. Dean knows why, even though, to this day, Cas has never volunteered the information to him or anyone else. The Mossad, his family, had beaten him before they let him out of their agency. His own family, a family that he loved so much and had tried to stay loyal to, had just done that to him. And when he got back and Dean hadn't said anything, he thought that the family he had left his own for didn't want him.

But that was far from the truth.

"I want you," Dean had said. "I need you. So don't even think of leaving, you got it?" And Cas had nodded. Dean knew Cas had left this family for him. Dean _knew_, no matter what Cas would say in the future. And no way was he letting that go unknown.

"I _know_ Cas," he whispered, grinding down on him and making the latter gasp and clutch at his shoulders. "I _know_ and I don't think I can _ever_ thank you for it." He'd looked Cas in the eyes then, said those three words he never thought he'd say. "I _love_ you, you idiot. I. Love. _You_. And _no one_ else. So I'm _not_ letting you go." And Castiel's eyes had almost popped from his head and before he could feel obligated to say it back, because Dean knew Cas had to let him all the way in first and he was ok with that, Dean had kissed him hard on the lips and grinded down at the same time. "Now tell me where it hurts so I can kiss it better."

And Dean had kissed every inch of Cas's skin, in every place imaginable. He had murmured how much he loved him into every crevice, every fold, every line of him. He hadn't let Cas say one word, always kissing him before he got a chance. Dean needed to do this for him, for Cas. He needed to do it for him and nothing was going to stop him.

And that's how it had gone. They hadn't gone into work the next day, Dean claiming Cas was in no shape to do anything and that he needed Dean around to help him, and they had bonded in a way that Dean was sure even straight people couldn't bond. Cas had called it a 'profound bond'. Dean had just given him a look and said, "Eat your nachos."

The months that followed that were bumpy, but better than either of them could have hoped. Dean still regretted that they had to keep their relationship on the down low, but he dealt. And Cas had even started doing groceries, which Dean really wanted to tell Sam since the other day, his brother had come over while Cas was out feeding Ana and had commented on the contents of his fridge and Dean had laughed out loud. Sam chalked it up to his big brother being a freak and working in law enforcement.

The grocery store, Dean thinks now, is the damn reason why he was in the mess he was in, to get to the heart of the matter. Just the other week, he and Cas had gone grocery shopping, far enough away that they wouldn't be spotted by any of the locals, or worse, Bobby. They'd been checking out, Dean teasing Cas as usual, even swatting him in the behind and earning a glare that was masking a laugh, when he'd heard a squeal.

The cashier was looking at them with doe-eyes and Dean was getting a bad feeling when she opened her mouth and confirmed it. "Oh. My. _God_. _You two_. You two are _sooo_ adorable. No, I don't think you two _understand_. You're _beyond_ adorable, be-_yond_. You need to ride off into the sunset, get married and have babies. _Now_."

Dean had stopped and looked at Castiel horrified, but his partner had just looked beyond amused. "I'm quite certain that males cannot have children. Not on their own or with another. The sunset, well, Maryland sunsets are blocked by the capitol. But the _marriage_," and with that he had looked at Dean with something in his eyes. "The marrying thing we can do."

And then they'd cashed out, the screaming cashier far behind them. And Dean was left to think about marriage and gay marriage and how it'd been four years and he wanted Cas all to his self and that he wanted to marry Cas and that was that. Dean thinks the fricking cashier that made him make a life changing decision had a name like Becky Rosen or Benny or something like that.

But the more he thinks about it, he wants to say her name was Doris.

* * *

><p>Dean is 34 years old. He has a little brother who still isn't married. And Dean's about to be the first one. Hopefully that is. <em>If<em> Cas says yes. _If_ they can escape the wrath of Robert Steven Singer in breaking Rule #12. _If_.

If only.

Currently, Dean is sitting at his desk staring at a blank computer screen because he doesn't know how to turn the damn thing on. There's no one else in the building, which is really strange, seeing as it's a Friday night and that's usually the busiest time. Bobby's in a meeting with Ellen, and he doesn't get why they had one so late. But Dean's there, wondering where Sam is, stealing looks with Cas, who's sitting at _his_ desk across from Dean's.

Cas. Cas and his gold Star of David necklace gleaming at his throat. Cas and his funny way of talking, not knowing how to use contractions, not 'understanding that reference'. Cas and his stupid trench coat. Cas and his clearly-there stubble because no matter how many times Dean has taught the man to shave correctly, he still can't do it. Cas and his long, thin fingers that Dean has seen doing dirtier things than typing on a computer. Cas and his big blue eyes that shine when Dean smiles. Cas and his dark hair that's coarse and perfect for Dean to run his fingers through. Cas and his kick-ass ninja moves.

Yeah. Cas.

His Cas.

But anyway, Dean can feel the heaviness of his backpack, where it lays at his feet, the tiny black velvet box weighing it down. He knows its all in his head, that only Jo would be able to tell the difference because she's creepy smart like that. But still; damn bag is _heavy_.

Today is his and Cas's four year anniversary. They usually go out to celebrate and people think it's just the anniversary of that one time that Dean was shot and dying and Cas saved his ass. And it is. But it's also more, so. What they don't know, don't hurt 'em.

He'd gonna ask Cas tonight, while they're at dinner. He's gonna hope and pray that he doesn't make an idiot out of himself. He's gonna hope that Castiel doesn't deck him in the face the minute he sees the ring.

He's gonna stop worrying right now 'cause Cas is giving him a worried look and getting up to walk over to his desk. Cas has this walk, Dean's noticed, and its amazing. There's a slight lilt to it and he loves it. But he stops thinking of the way Cas walks when the man gets to his desk and blatantly says, because Cas likes to be blunt, "What's troubling you?"

Dean wonders if Cas gets that people don't use the word 'troubling' anymore, but its Cas, so he lets it slide. "Nothing," he says and looks away. Because that's just the way Dean Winchester rolls. Lie to your boyfriend, the only one who knows your tells besides Sam and your mother. Smooth, Winchester, really smooth.

Cas sighs and Dean has too look because he loves it when Cas sighs. He looks so dramatic, sometimes even more than Sammy when he's being bitchy and that's saying something. "Dean. Why do insist on lying to me?" his partner responds.

Dean sighs. Really, what is he supposed to say when Cas looks at him like that? "Seriously, Cas. I'm fine. It's just... one of those days," is what he goes with.

But Cas is a sneaky bastard, and really, Dean should know better. He _should_. But he _doesn't_. The latter narrows his eyes at Dean and walks around to the other side of Dean's desk. Normally, Dean would be worried that they'd be caught, but there's no one around, which is still bugging him, but whatever. Cas stalks right on over and sits right on his lap, facing Dean, and wrapping his legs around Dean's own. He presses his nose to the hollow at Dean's throat and rubs the area there, breathing out, his breath tickling the shit out of Dean. "I think you're lying," Cas says against Dean's warm skin.

"What if I told you I'd tell you later?" Dean hedges. It's not a lie; he _is_ telling Cas later. Cas just doesn't know that its more of a question, and not a fact, that's gonna change a lot between them.

Castiel pouts though, another thing Dean loves because Cas's mouth is just sinful, and he might be feeling ballsy enough to kiss him right now. "What if I said I wanted to know _right_ _now_?"

It's a purr coming out of Cas and Dean thinks '_to hell with it'_, and kisses the crap out of him. He feels Cas's new NCIS badge digging into his thigh as the man gets closer to him. He'd been smiling like an idiot when Cas had been accepted into the agency.

Cas pulls back way too soon, making Dean whimper, but the look the ex-Mossad agent gives him shuts him up. "We are going to get caught," Castiel says in a way that's almost playful. He shimmies off of Dean's lap, rubbing all the right places and leaving Dean hard and with Cas too far away to do anything about it.

Dean can't do anything but sigh, and he does. Cas just smiles, like the smug little prick he is, and sits back down. "I _will_ tell you later," Dean reminds, because he likes the thought of Cas thinking about what Dean could have in store for him all day. By the way Cas is shaking his head, Dean knows he's won on that count.

It's only a few more minutes later that Dean gets sick of the silence and openly inquires where everyone has gone. "Cas, you notice anything... weird?"

Castiel looks up from his computer, sliding his reading glasses up his nose. Just another thing Dean loves to fricking pieces. "Yes. There doesn't seem to be anyone here today. Is there a meeting we were unaware of?"

Dean shrugs his shoulders. "I don't know," he says, because he really doesn't. And why is Cas even asking him. He lives with Dean, for God's-sake, he knows how unorganized Dean is. And anyway, Sam is usually the one who tells them all if there's a mandatory meeting that they have to go to, like that one with abuse in the workplace when Dean had asked if getting hit upside the head was abuse. He cringes and Cas gives him a look. Bobby had hit him _extra_ hard upside the head for that one.

"Where's Sam anyway?" Dean says and at that moment, the elevator dings, the first time since Dean and Cas have gotten there. Dean gets up to see who it is and gasps, running to the elevator, Cas on his heels, as Sam stumbles through the double doors.

He has a large gash on his head and his pupils are all shot to hell, which means he probably has a concussion. There's blood everywhere and Dean is grateful when Cas veers to the left to get the First Aid kit as Dean makes it to his little brother. "Sammy, what the hell happened?"

Sam is too busy to answer him at the moment though. He scrambles away from the elevator doors, dragging Dean with him because no matter how hurt he is, Sam is a fucking Sasquatch and can still drag his older brother with him.

"Sammy," Dean says again, sitting him in the chair that he dragged out from behind his desk and to the center of the bullpen. "What happened?"

As Cas comes behind him, the kit already open and handing Dean gauze pads, Sam stutters, "D-demons."

Dean freezes, feels Cas tense up behind him, and asks, "The kind that Bobby has locked up in closets or the kind that like to shoot us up full of holes like Swiss cheese?"

Sam stops for a moment, his concussed mind processing everything slower than normal, then answers, "The second one."

Dean hears Castiel swear behind him and suddenly everything makes sense. The lack of people in the workplace, how everything seemed wrong. The Demons were here. The Demons were a gang that was made up of ex-Marines and naval officers, most that had been discharged under bad circumstances. Dean had been taken by them two years ago, and, four days later, Cas had literally kicked down the doors and dragged him out. It wasn't an experience he wanted to repeat.

"They have the others," Sam says as Dean dabs at the blood running down his face. "Everyone. I was wondering where the receptionist was when one of them came out of nowhere and tried to smash my head in with a fire extinguisher. They're keeping them in interrogation rooms on the first floor."

Sam closes his eyes against a wave of dizziness and Dean takes that moment to look to Castiel and nod. "Go get the Director and Bobby."

Cas nods and goes, but not before handing Sam some more gauze pads and secretly squeezing Dean's shoulder. He runs up the stairs, two at a time, and when he reaches them, the door opens before he even gets to knock. He looks down at Dean in confusion and Dean looks at Sam and Sam just spaces out in a haze of pain.

"Um..." Castiel says as Bobby walks out, confused at seeing him right outside the door. Ellen pushes past the two of them and Dean thinks the door is just going to close when...

"Oh no fucking way," Dean swears as Castiel looks on in distaste. Crowley walks out of the room right behind Ellen. Dean really hates Crowley. He really, really does. The guy's a dick CIA agent with a bad accent who likes to fuck around with their cases and claim that he's helping. Dean punched him once. It was great.

"Language Winchester," Ellen says as she makes her way down to them, Bobby on her tail. Crowley stares at Castiel until the new agent grudgingly walks down the stairs. Dean feels bile rise and burn his throat as Crowley's eyes slide down Castiel's back and land on his ass. And Cas knows, which is the worst part, the discomfort on his face plain as day. He has no interest in Crowley, but that doesn't stop the damn perv from making him uncomfortable anyway.

"Crowley," Bobby barks. "Stop perving on my people." And Dean is eternally grateful that his Boss is smart enough to see that Crowley's an asshole.

Crowley rolls his eyes and pushes past Castiel, the former Mossad agent recoiling from his touch like he'd just been burned. As Ellen checks Sam out and Bobby rips Crowley a new one, Dean walks over to Cas and whispers, "You ok? Did he touch you?" _Anywhere inappropriate_, is left unsaid, but Castiel hears it anyway.

"No," he whispers back. "But I am not alright."

Dean's heart squeezes and he promises, "I'll make it up to you later." And its jerks like Crowley that make Dean realize how much he loves Cas and make him eager to get hitched to the nerdy little guy in a trench coat that can kick your ass in under a minute.

"What happened?" Ellen demands, hands on her hips, a no nonsense look on her face.

"The Demons took over the building," Dean answers as Sam groans a little and Bobby punches him in the arm, telling him to man-up.

Ellen gives Bobby a dark look that says 'knock it off'. Then she looks back to Dean and Castiel. "Where's everyone else?"

"Sam said they were in the lower floor interrogation rooms."

She nods, looks at him and says, "Jo and Gabe are down there."

Dean freezes. "What? Why?"

Ellen gives him a hopeless look at that. "What do you expect? Jo wanted to finish a project and she stayed for the night. Gabe is just... _Gabe_. He never goes home."

Dean sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. Then he makes up his mind. "Ok. I'm gonna go get them. Gabe can check Sam out when we get him up here." At that moment, as if the Demons know they were acknowledged by their captives, the lights go out. Cas's computer goes black to and there's the sound of rustling as Bobby grabs a flashlight from his desk. The dark room is filled with a narrow stripe of light. Dean is starting to regret getting the night shift. If it was day, someone would have noticed by now a whole building going dark. And there'd be more people missing.

He's decided he hates the night shift. Officially.

There's more rustling as Ellen and Crowley go off to get more flashlights and Dean instinctively reaches out and grabs Cas, moving him closer to him. He's not gonna let Cas out of his limited sight, not with the lights out and fucking _Crowley_ creeping around.

"Everyone ok?" Bobby calls as flashlights are stood on their ends, the bulbs sticking up and shining light over them. There are about ten flashlights on. Sam is sitting up, shying away from a few, the light no doubt giving him a headache.

Dean nods. "We're cool," and then realizes that everyone is looking at him strange. He freezes when Cas nudges away from him and feels his face color in embarrassment. He'd still been holding Cas.

"Seems like someone is freaked out by the dark," Crowley says snidely. Castiel glares at him and he shuts up. Dean has never been so proud.

"Smart. They cut off our power supply," Sam says drowsily.

"Hey, man," Dean says, walking over to his brother. "You can't sleep."

"I wasn't sleeping," Sam responds, though his speech is slightly slurred. Dean shakes his head; they hit him pretty bad.

"That's it. I'm going for them. Director Harvelle, permission to go kick Demon ass," Dean says, hand on his gun.

"Permission denied," Ellen says.

"What? What?"

Bobby shakes his head. "You can't go get 'em alone, you idjit." He sighs. "Damn, boy. Its like you learned nothing working with me."

Dean wants to say that no, he hadn't learned anything, especially not Rule #12. He hates that rule. He feels like a bad-ass breaking it. "I can handle my self. They cut off our power, but its their power too. They're as much in the dark as we are."

"You're still not going alone."

"I'll go." Everyone turns to where Castiel is already cocking his gun and raising an eyebrow like they forgot he was there and more than capable.

"_No_," Dean says at the same time that Bobby and Ellen say simultaneously, "Alright."

"_No_?" Bobby says as he turns to Dean. But Dean could care less if his superior rips him a new one. That's his Cas, his boyfriend, his fiancé-to- be. He's not going anywhere. "Whaddya mean no? Its either you both go or no one goes. He's your partner you idjit. He's supposed to go with you."

Cas gives Dean a weird look but Dean knows that if he says, 'well yeah, he's my partner. I love him. If he gets hurt, I'm so screwed,' that Bobby will drop kick his ass out of here. So.

"Sorry. Fine. You're right. I've got no right to be saying that." He sighs and turns to Ellen. "Director Harvelle. Permission to shoot anything that moves and has the name Demon?"

At that, Ellen smiles. "Permission granted agents Winchester and Novak." She stops though and looks at them. "But try to keep someone alive this time." Castiel blushes as Dean realizes he's remembering when he rescued Dean. He'd killed half the compound trying to get to him.

They both nod and go for the stairs, neglecting the elevator because the damn thing won't work. They start making their way down to the ground level, opting to stick to the shadows and not stop at any floor but the basement where Jo and Gabe are.

Out on the top flight of stairs out of sight and away from everyone, Dean grabs Cas and kisses him chastely. "Dean, I'm not going anywhere," Cas says to him.

Dean hangs on for a minute more before he nods and let's go of Cas. He doesn't say anything though; he's not about to make promises he can't keep.

* * *

><p>Sam doesn't like that his brother and partner just went off by themselves to go get two other people on their team in a building full of gang-bangers. Really, he doesn't. But he's MIA and can't really do anything about it, so he moves his wheeley chair over and back to Dean's desk where its darkest. The lights are killing him.<p>

Right now, Ellen, Bobby and, ugh, _Crowley_, are taking the walls of other cubicle and surrounding the entire bull-pen so that they're protected on all sides. The cubicle walls make a circle that doesn't break and yeah, Sam does feel safer. Bobby has his gun out already, Ellen following, both checking and rechecking them to make sure that if and when they need to shoot, they'll shoot and not jam up on them. But no gun of Robert Singer's or Ellen Harvelle's has ever jammed, so Sam thinks that they're just nervous.

Off to the side, Crowley slouches in Castiel's chair and doesn't seem to be too worried. Sam doesn't get why Crowley is so obsessed with Castiel. Dean would never let that dick agent near his work-partner and Crowley knows it. Sam had noticed that Dean had gotten more protective of his work-partners after Lisa had died and especially after Castiel had quite Mossad and come back looking like he was thrown through a blender.

Sam sighs. Really, his head hurts too much to be worrying about these petty little things. He decides to just go through his brothers cabinets before he starts to worry about Jo and, God-forbid, _Gabe_. He opens the top one up and finds, surprise, a Busty Asian Beauties mag. Really, Dean should know better than to bring those into the workplace. And he should have better taste. The looks around in that drawer and finds only miscellaneous papers and pens and sticky notes and what might have once been a granola bar but has now got ten different kinds of mold growing on it. He throws the bar away, slightly gagging and vowing to murder his brother himself when he gets up there.

The second drawer is full of Dean's files and actual stuff he needs for work. Sam moves to the other side of the desk and is surprised to find the only drawer there locked. He searches on Dean's desk for the keys when his eyes begin to droop and he shakes himself. There would be no sleeping for him. He needed to make sure of that. A few minutes later, he realizes the keys are probably with Dean's others keys which were in his bag. Sam sighs and bends down, even when Bobby is giving him a weird look, and nabs Dean's back. Is it him, or is it kinda heavier than usual?

Sam shrugs as he lifts the damn thing onto his lap and shoves his hand in. He finds the keys quick and drops the bag to the floor carelessly, not even noticing when something rolls out. Bending to the drawer, Sam shoves the key in and twists his wrist, opening it. He pulls it back and looks on in confusion. This draw has a little book in it and that's it. It looks like maybe a scrap-book, but smaller and with a lot more papers hanging out the edges.

Sam reaches in and picks up the book and kicks the draw closed. He settles back into the chair and is about to open it when he notices Crowley staring. Sam won't admit it to anyone, not even his brother, but he doesn't trust Crowley. There's something... decidedly off about him and Sam feels the CIA gives way to much wiggle room to work with. He ignores the feeling of the hair rising on his neck and opens the book on his lap. The first thing he sees is Castiel's NCIS agent request form. It's a copy, that much is evident, but Sam kinda wonders why it's in Dean's desk.

He starts to rifle through the loose papers, noticing how most of the pages are empty. Which meant that all the loose papers were probably going to be used in the empty book when everything was organized. It wasn't that that confused Sam though; it was the content of the loose papers. Most of the stuff centered on Dean's work partner, Castiel. There was his liaison request form, also a copy, a picture of him when he first came to them that Sam was pretty sure Jo had taken; there was a random napkin with a phone number on it that Sam didn't recognize and a whole bunch of other miscellaneous stuff. There were even two concert tickets to a Led Zeppelin Revival tour that Sam was sure Dean had gone to alone. But there were the two tickets, both with the same serial number signifying that the same person had paid for them. There were other things too, like developed-photo packets. There were actually several of those. Sam would have opened them to find out who Dean was with but they were all still sealed and unopened, and Sam didn't want to risk being found out.

Instead, Sam decided to look through the rest of the book. He found blank pages, like before until he got to the front of it. The first page was blank of writing, design or color except for one thing: a photo. And it baffled the mind. In it, was Dean, the background of a beach, probably Virginia Beach, behind him. And beside him, was Castiel Novak. Dean had an arm slung around the other man's shoulders and was holding him quite close. Castiel's arm was around Dean's waist, almost tugging the other man closer. They were smiling though; both with big, goofy smiles, and Castiel even had a light sunburn on his upper cheeks. His lips were red too, but Sam wasn't so sure that that was from the sun. Because Dean's were too. And Dean had spent his life in the sun. He didn't get sunburn or the red lips that came with it.

Sam stopped his line of thought. He knew Dean was flexible in his sexual orientation, but he never thought his brother would do this. Go against their boss's rules? Never. Dean would never do that to Bobby. He wouldn't dare. He wouldn't dare break Rule #12, one of the most important rules of the Singer Rules.

Sam starts to laugh then. Maybe it's his head that's giving him ridiculous notions. Dean and Castiel were work partners, not _partners_. His concussed mind was making everything difficult to understand and twisting things around. Dean and Castiel were probably just good friends, and Sam knows that to be true; they had to be, they were _partners_. _Work_ partners.

Crowley raises an eyebrow as Sam closes the drawer after putting everything back in, still laughing. "Anyone got some crazy pills?" the CIA agent drawls. "'Cause I think Happy over there could use them."

Bobby rolls his eyes at the man. "Oh shut up, Crowley. Cut the boy some slack, he's half brain dead already. No need to make him feel worse by taunting."

Sam decides to ignore them as Ellen takes a tired seat. He reaches down and grabs Dean's bag to put the keys back when he notices the thing that had rolled out of Dean's bag. He bends under the desk to retrieve it, grunting as he feels the soft, velvety box shape come in his hand. Sam sits back up, earning a glare from Ellen.

"Stop moving your head so much you idiot," she reprimands

Sam is beginning to think that he's being abused in the work place a bit too much than is absolutely necessary or legal. He sighs anyway, because it's not like he can do anything about it with gauze taped to his bleeding head and everything looking sideways, when he's sure its' all straight. Sam decides to just look at _whateverthefuck_ is in his hands and see what the hell was in Dean's bag.

He's surprised to find the velvet box, even more surprised when he opens it and sees a ring in there. Sam's sure that Dean was planning on giving it to someone and hadn't received it. Hell, he _knows_ Dean was planning on giving it, it was in _his_ bag. But to who? All thoughts of breaking possible Singer Rules fly out of Sam's damaged mind as he stares at the simple silver _engagement_ band and wonders who the hell his brother has been seeing long enough to be in a relationship with and want to consider marrying them.

Sam distantly remembers being happy that Dean had found someone when he's being violently shaken awake and thrown to the ground by Bobby. He hears shooting in what seems like the distance but is, in reality, right near him. "Stay _down_ you idjit," Bobby swears at him. He might've been about to say more but a female voice cries out, "BOBBY!" and a look of panic streaks across the man's face as he leaves Sam with a final, "Head _down_," and runs for whoever had called for him.

Sam just stays under his brother's desk, velvet box in hand and prays that Dean doesn't have to pry the thing from his cold, dead fingers.

* * *

><p>There are three guards when they reach the basement floor where the morgue, tech lab and forensic lab are: one by the forensics door, one by the morgue's door and one right at their door, the door to leave the stairwell and get to the other two.<p>

Dean watches as Cas sighs a little, like the armed and dangerous guards are just a nuisance to him, which Dean is pretty sure they are. "I'll get rid of them," Castiel says, and just as he is about to go out there, _alone_, mind you, Dean grabs him by the arm and forces him into a crouch in the darkness of the stairwell.

"Alone?" Dean asks. He's never going to get used to Cas going off alone. He hates that.

Castiel sighs like what he's about to say is just to humor Dean. "Yes, Dean. Alone. I can handle three guards."

"Armed guards," Dean reminds him.

Cas seems to think that Dean is being ridiculous though. "Just cover me, Dean. I can handle it."

Dean knows that if he says no, Cas will let him go with him. He also knows he'll probably slow the religious man down. He sighs, because really, nothing is ever fair with him, and nods. "Ok. Fine. But one gunshot and that's it. I'm coming out there and shooting someone up so bad they won't even be able to float in water."

Castiel gives him a dramatic look and also nods; he knows how Dean can get. The best thing is to just agree with him. Suddenly, Dean grabs Cas's face and kisses him again, hard. Its not that Cas is complaining, but they do need to get their friends and co-workers out of there. He succumbs for a few seconds, then pushes Dean back. "I find it comical that you always do this." Kissing the crap out of Cas before he does something dangerous, he means. "But I will be _fine_ Dean. You must relax and have a little faith in my abilities."

Dean definitely senses a pout there, even though it's a bit too dark to tell, and decides to kiss it off Cas's face before responding, "I do have faith in you Cas. I just don't have faith in those assholes outside not to shoot. You know? I worry about you, despite your ninja powers."

Cas actually laughs at that, his quiet chuckle making all the heat pool between Dean's legs and yep: it's time for Cas to go before Dean jumps his bones and no one gets saved. Dean actually shoves him toward the door and Cas responds with a, "I'm going, do not worry. It is nice to know you can change your mind so quickly." And with that, he disappears through the door and does his thing.

Dean still doesn't know how Cas does it, and he probably will never know. All he sees it a shadow and then Cas is behind the first guy, pressing something in his neck and making his eyes roll back into his head. He leads their guard to the floor while the other two have their backs turned. He's on the guy who's guarding the morgue in seconds, punching him in the face and then spinning to catch the other guard who's coming behind him to kick him in the stomach. Dean winces when the guy sloppily punches forward on his way down to the ground and it catches Cas in the jaw.

But both guys are on the ground, the first one knocked out cold the other getting kicked in the temple by Cas and passing out seconds later. Neither called in backup, too engrossed in their counterattack to the NCIS agent. Dean opens the door and walks out into the dm hallway, the backup lights shining on them. He lifts an eyebrow as Cas rubs his jaw.

Cas shrugs. "He punches quite hard."

"Uh huh," Dean says and gestures for Cas to come closer so he can check it out. Sure enough, his angel has a bruise forming. Dean rolls his eyes. "Be careful, you're not invincible, Cas."

Cas just grunts and nods towards the morgue door. "Am I getting Gabriel?"

"Yes," Dean groans in happiness, because, damnit, Gabe's a funny guy when you get right down to it, but he's a pain in the ass and no way is Dean gonna deal with him.

"I thought so. Meet back out in five?" Castiel asks and Dean nods.

Cas tries the handle on the door and sighs when he finds it locked. Instead of knocking on the door and telling Gabe it's him, Cas shoots the handle, the metal going flying off to the side, and Dean hears a yelp before he's doing the same thing and going to find Jo.

* * *

><p>"Take me instead!"<p>

Castiel opens his mouth to talk to Gabriel. The shorter man is in front of the drawers that the dead bodies are kept in. His arms are extended to either side of him and his eyes are closed in fear. "Gabriel," Castiel starts, only to have the man in question cut him off again.

"Don't hurt them!" he yells again. "Whatever you do, you leave them alone. You shoot me if you're going to shoot anyone."

It takes Castiel a moment to realize that Gabriel is talking about the dead bodies. He's _defending_ the dead bodies; and they're already _dead_. "Gabriel, please just-"

"Ple-hee-hease," Gabriel starts to sob. "Don't do anything to them. Just leave them alone and-"

"Gabriel it's me," Castiel finally says, exasperated. He walks up to the shorter man and takes him by the shoulders, shaking him. "Open your eyes. Now."

Gabe opens them and a smile of relief drips onto his face. "Oh, God, Castiel, it's you. I thought you were _them_."

"What happened?" Castiel asks.

Gabe swallows. He looks a bit paler than usual. "They came. I heard them talking in the hall and locked the doors and came all the way to the back. But they didn't shoot it down. They just... waited." He seemed as if he had made up his mind. "Castiel, they're waiting for something, or someone. They're _waiting_."

Castiel finds this interesting. He wonders what they're waiting for, exactly. "Thank you for your input Gabriel. But we need to go. Now. Dean will have Jo soon and then we're heading back upstairs."

"We're going _out there_?" Gabriel asks in horror.

Castiel lifts an eyebrow. "How do you think we got in here in the first place?"

"Besides shooting my fucking door handle _off_?" Gabriel bitches.

Castiel scowls. "Gabriel-"

"No. I'm not leaving them." He gestures behind him to the dead bodies being held in the metal, cooled cabinets.

"Gabriel," Castiel sighs. "You do realize that they are already dead, don't you?"

Gabriel looks like he's about to say something and then stops. He folds his arms across and grumbles and Castiel knows he's made his point. "Fine," he finally says. "Just... let me get my stuff. I was bunking with Kali tonight."

Castiel stops as Gabe walks toward the rows of cabinets holding the dead. Kali, Kali, Kali... where has he heard that before- "Gabriel, do you mean _Kali D'Stroyer_. The dead body we found last week?"

Gabriel opens the cabinet and sure enough, on the wide metal slab there's the dead body of Kali D'Stroyer. And next to it? A sleeping bag. Gabriel takes the bag and then closes the cabinet and Castiel's eyes are still wide.

"What?" Gabriel says, moving past Castiel.

"You sleep with the _dead_?" the Jewish man says, his hand flying to his necklace, grasping the Star of David tightly. You _did not_ sleep with the dead, it was an abomination. Then again, so was, supposedly, homosexuality. He sighs. Their discombobulated, dysfunctional family is really discombobulated and dysfunctional.

Gabriel makes a face. "Eeww. I don't sleep with-sleep with them. Like, I'm not a necropheliac. It's just... nice to have company sometimes. And Kali is probably the coolest corpse in there. She died in a fire you know that? But she didn't burn. So how did she die?" Gabriel seems too excited to be explaining this to him as they walk out of the morgue. "Her skin has this oil residue that acts as a repellent to fire, like someone lathered her in it before that so that she wouldn't burn and-"

"_Gabriel_," Castiel says. "I don't really care."

Gabe shuts his mouth with a click. "Fine." After a moment he says, "I thought you said Dean was here."

"I also said my partner was getting Jo, didn't I?"

Gabe shrugs. "It seems to be taking a while." And Castiel has to agree with him. Dean shouldn't be taking this long. Suddenly, beside him, Castiel hears Gabriel says, "Oh _crap_."

He turns to see what his corpse-obsessed friend is swearing at when he sees it. "Oh crap indeed."

There was Dean, coming out of the forensics lab. Looking angry as all Hell. And there was Jo being dragged behind him, in her white lab-coat and... a shirt that was _definitely_ not hers.

And trailing behind her in all his mullet-splendored glory? Ashmore Talbot, better known as Ash, NCIS's personal computer genius.

With his pants still unbuttoned.

Oh God. Ellen was _not_ going to be _happy_ about _this_.

* * *

><p>When Dean kicks down the door to Jo's lab, he doesn't expect to find the room empty at first. He doesn't expect to see clothes abandoned in random places. He doesn't expect to find Jo on a sleeping bag, almost naked, with the tech guy on top of her, pants around his ankles.<p>

But damnit, that's what he finds.

"Hey!" he yells. "Get the _hell_ offa her!"

And pandemonium ensues after that. He pulls Ash off, Jo covers up before he sees anything, and it's not like he'd get turned on. If anything, it would be Ash he'd get horny off of, but even the guy doesn't elicit a response from Dean because the older agent is so focused on having Castiel. He glares as Ash gets his shirt and throws it at Jo, along with her lab coat, as Ash helps her into it, his pants still unbuttoned. He doesn't even wait for Ash to get more than his shoes on, he just hustles them out the door.

Gabriel looks like someone might have slapped him. Cas just looks like someone pissed in his Wheaties. Dean honestly doesn't blame either of them.

"Wh-what happened?" Jo asks tentatively. Ash has an arm around her waist, and yeah, Dean's a dick if he doesn't see that they actually have something.

But Dean's a bad older brother-figure if he doesn't ask. So he does. "Were you two using protection?" It's quiet from that end of the room and Gabe makes a face. Yeah. Ellen is definitely not going to be happy about this. "I said," Dean starts.

But Ash cuts him off. "No," the mullet wearing man says.

And Dean wants to punch something, _someone_ if he's being honest, and God, if Ash could just stand a little closer... "Do _you_ wear protection when you go down on someone?" Jo asks rudely, like she's put out that Dean didn't even let them get to the good part.

Dean sees Cas blush out of the corner of his eye. No, Dean doesn't use protection. But that's because he knows he's clean, he knows Cas's clean and he can't knock Cas up. "_One_," Dean starts, "it doesn't matter what I do, because I'm not 22. _Two_, what I screw can't get knocked up," and at that, everyone in the room, even Cas because he never thought Dean would admit it so bluntly, gets a look on their face of shock and surprise, "and _three_, damnit Joanna Beth, you know better." Dean looks to Ash. "So do _you_ Ash."

"Hey, if anything happened," Ash starts but Dean cuts him off.

"Look, right now, we can't argue about this. We have trouble. But later? Ashmore Talbot, I don't care if your older sister is high up the CIA chain, I will rip you such a big new one, you'll need a patch to cover that new hole."

Jo's eyes go wide, but not form the comment, like Ash's do. "What's wrong?"

Dean grunts and shakes his head. "While you two were screwing around-"

"Quite literally," Gabe throws in and everyone, as usual, ignores the comment because they know better than to respond.

"-the Demons infiltrated the building," Dean finishes, like Gabe hadn't ever interrupted.

Jo goes a little white, because she's only a lab girl, doesn't even have a gun and this shit is dangerous. "The Demons, like... like the ones with little red horns or the ones that have pictures of us that they use for target practice?"

"That'd be the second one," Dean says. "And they are fucking everywhere. Did you not notice when the power went out and the back up came on?"

Ash clears his throat and answers, "No... um... we kept the lights off."

Dean gives Ash a look and then says. "You know you're probably fired, don't you?"

Ash nods solemnly. "Yep. Mind as well help while I still can."

Gabe just grunts. "So." The small claps his hands together. "Cassie here said we're heading back up. I take that to mean, you know, using the stairs since the elevator is busted for now. How're we gonna accomplish this, anyhow?"

Dean clears his throat. Between in the five of them, they have two guns and whatever other goodies Cas has packed, because Dean knows Cas has them packed. They've got a mortician that talks (and sleeps) with dead things, a forensic scientist that's better at telling you what's in a drop of rain than hitting a target and a computer genius who hacks the internet for fun on the weekends.

Basically, they're screwed.

"Uh..." he trails off, unsure of what to do. But they're all looking at him, even Cas is, because he's the senior field agent in this case, so its his call. He wishes he got service in the building when he realizes that, yeah, maybe he does.

Dean turns to Ash and beckons to the man, who finally zips his fly and snaps his button before coming over. "Wanna get back on my good side?" Dean asks and Ash unashamedly nods. "Well then good." Dean extends his phone. "Get me some service."

The look on Ash's face says that it's a piece of cake.

Or pie. Dean's always been a fan of a good piece of pie.

* * *

><p>Ellen is more than surprised when the phone on Castiel's desk rings. She waits a moment and it rings again, so she runs for it and picks it up. "Uh... Sam?"<p>

"Sorry, kid, Sam is currently passed out under your desk," Ellen says, but there's a happy note to it, like Dean's voice is her saving grace. "God Dean, we were worried. We just got attacked and-"

"Attacked? They came up? Is it safe to go up there?"

"It is now," she answers bleakly. "They moved out. I think they just wanted to shake us since we were down a couple of people. How's the search going?"

"We found them," she hears Dean say, but there's something else in his voice...

"Ok, spill," she says as Bobby taps her shoulder and silently asks who she's on the phone with. She mouths the word 'Dean' and he nods; damn old man and his insecurities.

"Nah, it's nothin' director. We can handle it. Is anybody hurt? You said Sam-"

"Passed out due to stress and his concussion under your desk. I know: don't let a concussion victim sleep, but its been a few hours, so we decided to give him a couple. Get your asses up here, we really could use a hand on how to figure out surviving through the night."

Crowley makes an obscene gesture and calls from where he is at Sam's desk now, "Tell Castiel that-"

Ellen blocks out whatever he says, although Bobby doesn't if the scowl and the way he slaps Crowley upside the head is any indication. "And Crowley is gonna make one of us shoot him if he doesn't shut up. Please hurry." She pauses. "Hey, how'd you get your phone and mine to connect?"

Dean swallows and Ellen Harvelle isn't stupid; she knows when her people are about to lie to her, or avoid her question. "We'll be up in fifteen. See ya, Director."

And then, Ellen is left with a dial tone and then nothing. She turns back to where Bobby is waving his gun about, threatening to shoot the stupid CIA agent. She hears what Crowley is saying. A gunshot rings around the bullpen, startling Sam awake. Bobby is smirking in satisfaction and Crowley's mouth is grudgingly closed and he's staring at the smoking bullet hole on the piece of cubicle-wall by his head. And Ellen? Well, Ellen just puts her smoking gun away and smiles just as smugly as Bobby is, and they both look at each other and share the kind of smile that only people who have lived through hell together can smile. The smile of knowing the other completely.

"I was _just_ saying-" Crowley starts again, when another gun shot goes off and there's a twin hole next to the one Ellen made. Bobby and Ellen both look to where Sam is, his gun in his hand, a scowl on his face.

Crowley looks impressed. "Whoa, you big moose. You're a pretty good shot. Right next to the Director's, that was."

Sam grunts. "Actually, I'm a crappy shot. I was aiming for the center of your head." He grunts. "Huh. Must be the concussion that's throwing me off."

Crowley goes white. "You mean-"

"_One_ more word," the younger Winchester intones and then yawns. "And I'll try harder at aiming, next time."

Bobby is impressed. Ellen is just proud. Crowley, on the other hand, stays blessedly quiet. And Sam...

Well, Sam rolls over on his wheeley chair, away from the bright lights, smiling and satisfied...

And goes right back to sleep.

* * *

><p>Making it back up the stairs and to their floor is easy. Too easy, Dean thinks, but that can't be helped. Gabriel complains the whole way, muttering about how if Chuck were here he'd be taking his side and telling all of them that moving from the lower floors was a mistake. Ash and Jo are blessedly quiet and Dean thinks it's because they know they're in trouble. Castiel on the other hand, is silent, like a phantom. Dean has to reach out his hand to know the other man is there.<p>

Not one obstacle is met on their way up and that just puts a ball of apprehension in Dean's stomach. It's almost as if someone is telling the Demon gang forces to back off until... Until what? What could the gang possibly be waiting for? Did they want one of the team? Maybe Jo or Gabriel knew something, hell, even Ash could be who they wanted. Most likely it was Bobby or the Director that they were targeting and the rest of them were collateral damage. The thought terrifies Dean as he thinks of his little brother all crazed out upstairs, and Castiel, slinking up the stairs in front of him. If anything happened to either one of them... The thought isn't even worth thinking about.

Castiel suddenly freezes in front of him and Dean feels a little relief that maybe they'll get some interference, that maybe he's being paranoid, but no; Castiel starts moving again and Dean shoves Gabriel forward and up the stairs again. It's slow going, but they finally reach their floor. It's dark, but Dean's eyes have grown accustomed to the darkness. There's no one around and with that, Castiel opens the door to the main floor and starts ushering Gabriel, Ash and Jo quietly inside. Castiel is leading them in when Dean freezes, something Ellen said coming back to him.

"Guys wait," he whispers harshly and Castiel immediately stops and backtracks. Dean swallows. "This doesn't make any sense. Ellen says they were attacked. How can there be no one here if they were being shot-"

A gunshot rings overhead and Dean is being tackled to the ground by Castiel, his last sight Ash doing the same for Jo and Gabriel yelping. When Castiel let's Dean up, his eyes are wide and Dean's feeling like his stomach is falling out at his feet. But everyone's fine except for the fear in their eyes as gunshot rings in their ears and bullets whiz past. Gabriel has a hole in the shoulder of his lab coat and Castiel frowns in consternation.

"Gabriel-"

"It just grazed me," Gabriel reassures. He pokes his finger in the hole as Ash helps Jo up and covers her with his body at the flying piece of metal. "Damnit, I liked this coat." He turns to the direction of gunfire and yells as Dean and Castiel grab him each by an arm and follow where Ash is retreating with Jo, "Damn you, you stupid muttonheads! I liked this fucking coat! I'm going to make another one out of your hides, do you hear me?"

A figure appears then, out of the dark and Gabriel's eyes go wide. The women are shorter than Dean and Cas as they back away from them. Both have a huge glock in hand, their eyes wide and vicious. Dean swallows because he recognizes them.

"Meg," he says to the one with long, dark wavy hair and bright red lips, like she'd used someone's blood as lipstick. He turns to the other one with blond, flowy hair and white eyes. Dean remembers when they were blue, but a light bomb had bleached them of all color. It's a miracle she can still see. "Lilith."

"Dean-o," Meg answers. "Pleasure to see you."

"Likewise," Lilith says, fixing them with those unnerving eyes.

"Aw, the pleasure's all mine, ladies." Dean smiles falsely.

Suddenly, Meg's eyes go wide and she smiles. "Angelus," she purrs and Lilith looks shocked and excited at the same time.

Dean's got no idea what that means, so he just says, "Where's Alastair? The dick doesn't have the balls to come out here himself? He has to send his bitches over to do his dirty work?" with a leer.

Meg's eyes seem to go black, but Dean knows he's only imagining things; the Demon hadn't had her dark contacts on before, she couldn't magically put them on now. "You filthy, unworthy pig. You'll pay for that." And then she looks to Lilith and they both raise their guns.

Dean's eyes widen and he yells, "Go, go, _GO_!"

They start shooting haphazardly as the NCIS team runs for their lives toward their cubicle sanctuary. All the while, Gabriel is throwing insults over his shoulder. "Yeah that's right, you stupid Demon whores. You're his _bitches_. Does he have a bell for you girls? Did he tell you to shoot at my coat? DID HE TELL YOU TO SHOOT AT M-"

"Gabriel," Castiel grunts, the cubicle-wall fort coming in sight, "_Shut_ _up_."

That makes Gabriel's mouth snap shut neatly and Dean would kiss Castiel if he could, the world not previously knowing about their relationship be damned. Ash and Jo are snatched into the fort by steady, old hands and Gabriel is pushed through next. Soon Dean is jamming Castiel's body before his, and then tripping in behind him. They fall to the ground, Bobby slamming the cubicle pieces back together and sealing them in a safe cocoon away from the outside world. Ash is holding a sobbing Jo and Ellen is looking on in genuine confusion and interest. Sam is bolting out of his chair and wobbling as he tries to make his way to Dean, only to be caught by the elbow by Gabriel and brought back to his chair so the doctor can look him over.

Dean gets off of Castiel and extends a hand down. It takes every inch of his willpower not to pull Castiel into a feverish kiss when he hauls him up and the same look is in Castiel's eyes. "What the hell was that?" Bobby demands.

Dean lets go of Castiel's hand after a subtle squeeze and shakes his head. "I have no idea. One second everything is quiet and the next- BOOM! They're aiming for our heads."

"And our shoulders," Gabriel quips from where he's flashing a pen light in Sam's eyes. Dean glances to the aforementioned shoulder and sees blood soaking it.

"You said it grazed you," Dean says accusingly. If anyone is playing at the macho man, it should be the field agents, not the coroner.

"It _did_," Gabriel insists, even as Sam pokes at it, checking the damage. He bats Sam's hand away from his shoulder, though and says, "_You_, you knock it off or I will _refuse_ to give you pain meds, mister."

Sam's mouth falls open, and Dean tries not to laugh because Gabriel is the only one who can make Sam speechless. "I'm just concerned," Sam says haughtily.

"Well don't be," Gabriel gripes back. "It grazed me, took some skin. Believe me, if I was shot, I'd be making a big shit out of it."

"Oh yeah. He'd be pissing and moaning." Dean turns to Jo where she's now sitting on Ash's lap on a swivel chair, not looking at her mother. Her head is on Ash's shoulder and he's cradling her against his chest. Ellen doesn't even dare question them. Jo's 22. She can make her own decisions.

"So what's the plan of action?" Castiel asks. He sits on a random chair and tilts his head and Dean ignores it because if he doesn't, his heart will ache and it'll show on his face.

Bobby shakes his head. "Find out what they came for? You two see anyone familiar?"

Dean grimaces as he leans against his desk, next to Castiel's chair. "Unfortunately. Meg and Lilith."

"And their Smith & Wesson glocks, let's not forget those," Ash quips from the back, tired.

It's gone quiet outside, and it's making Dean uneasy again. He feels as if there's something missing, as if whatever those assholes had been waiting for had finally come. But he can't put his finger on it and that's bothering him.

"You think they came with a small force?" Ellen says.

Dean shrugs. "I would've said who knows before, but now that I saw those two..." Dean takes a deep breath. "I think they have only their main force, their originals."

Bobby and Ellen give him looks and Sam says from where Gabriel is stitching the wound on his head carefully, "What, you mean... Alastair, Azazel, Meg, Lilith, Lucifer and the unknown?"

"Not Lucifer, he's running everything, but the rest yeah," Dean says.

"The unknown?" Jo quotes looking at Sam.

Castiel answers though. "He's the only one of the original Demons that we haven't met. We suspect that he's someone in our legal system or maybe protection force, but its hard to be sure. They've been making deals with everyone and sometimes seem to be loyal only to themselves."

"All Demons are loyal only to themselves, Cas," Dean says with a shrug. "Why is 'the unknown' any different? Probably thinking about screwing Lucifer over which is why the big is coming after us, to reestablish his position of power, show 'em who's boss."

"Wait, wasn't there another original Demon?" Gabriel asks, cleaning some blood that had trickled down Sam's brow. "What's-her-name? Rudy?"

"Ruby," Sam corrects. "And yes, there was, but we caught her and she switched sides." He turns to Bobby and Ellen. "I was coming in today with some news on her actually before I got attacked. She's fallen off the grid." At the look of despair he sees, Sam plows on. "But she left me with some info before she blipped out." He clears his throat and tries to ignore Gabriel in his face as he painfully pulls his skin back together. "She said that good ol' Lucy disappeared a few weeks back. Something about a show-down. I don't know, I don't understand her sometimes when she speaks. But then there was something about what they were looking for." Surprisingly, he looks to Castiel. "Castiel, did you know the Demons were originally enemies to the Mossad? Back when they weren't the Mossad?"

Castiel looks a little caught off guard. "What? No. No, I did not. Who were they?"

"They were the _Angelus_," Sam says and Dean's eyes widen. "They opposed the _Daemonibus_, the Demons back in Israel. They switched to the modern day Mossad when they turned into a government agency. Ruby said that these Demons, the originals, were all descendants of the first _Daemonibus_ leaders. She was talking really quickly, but it had something to do with a revenge run, wipe out the last of the _Angelus_ in the U.S. or something like that."

"Ok," Ellen says. "Ok, if she's telling the truth, then why are they here? Why invade NCIS? Do they think we know who it is and we're protecting them or something? They have to know we have no idea."

She sighs and Bobby rests a hand on her lower back, guiding her to a seat. The lights are still out and the flashlights are doing their best to stay alive. Gabriel is finishing up Sam's stitches and Jo and Ash are just sitting, contemplating. Dean wracks his brains for something, anything as Castiel sits in contemplative silence.

"Wait," Dean says. "Meg. Meg said the word Angelus when she saw us come up. Lilith looked kinda excited and sadistic, which I'll admit is a normal look for her, but still. Something was up. And they were done waiting. Gabe said they were waiting for something whatever it was, they found it and now their coming."

"But what is it that they want?" Ash says as Jo runs her fingers through his mullet. "I mean, they cornered you guys up and then, what, waited for you to get us? But they didn't shoot any of us till we got upstairs? None of this is making any sense."

"And they attacked once while you guys were gone," Sam points out as Gabe ties off the thread on his forehead, dabbing at more blood. "Maybe it was like... I don't know, a signal or something?" He shrugs and Dean starts to get a really bad feeling, like he's really missing something. Really, really missing something. Something important.

Castiel is about to say something but he tilts his head and then stops as he notices two holes in the cubicle-wall. "Um... what happened?"

Ellen beams then, and Bobby just rolls his eyes. Sam though, starts laughing hysterically. "Um... Gabriel? Maybe you want to be getting him those pills now?" Ash recommends.

Gabriel looks concerned though, actually _concerned_. "Um... hey, Sammy. You ok?"

"Don't-" Sam says between giggles, "Don't-call me-that." He laughs a little more and Gabriel looks like he might actually freak out. He starts to flash a light in Sam's eyes again until the younger Winchester gets grouchy and swats at Gabriel's hand. "Knock it off."

Gabriel doesn't seem satisfied. "You just started _mwahaha-ing._ Out of nowhere. Not cool. You may have damaged something for real."

Sam shook his head. "Nah. I just shot at Crowley before. No biggie."

"Now _that_ I would've paid to- wait what?" Dean says, his blood going cold as he looks around the small enclosed space the cubicle walls have made. "Did you say Crowley? You shot at Crowley? Where the hell _is he_?"

An eerie, cold silence envelopes the group as it clicks. The thing that was missing. Crowley is _nowhere_ to be found.

"I knew it," Gabriel gripes, although he's moving closer to Sam as if to shield him from something. "I knew that dick was bad news. Bad fucking news, didn't I tell you? But who listens to the guy who talks to corpses? No one."

"Can you blame us?" Jo asks getting up and off Ash, and warily surveying the small space, as if the missing CIA agent would pop out of nowhere.

"Bobby, Ellen," Dean says, calling both his superiors by their first names to prove the gravity of the matter. "You need to tell me exactly what you two were meeting with Crowley about. Right now."

Castiel is up, his shoulders tense. Sam is stuck behind a menacing wall of Gabriel and when this is all over, and if Dean makes it out, he's buying Dr. Mallard a drink for everything that he's done, never mind that he doesn't like the man very much. Ash and Jo are wary looking, their eyes darting around. Dean is all peace and grace, staring at his superiors in a way that even the Devil, the gang leader and the being himself, would shirk away from.

Ellen swallows. "He came to talk to us about a security breach in the CIA. He was saying that it had already breached NCIS. A mole, he said. In our own backyard."

Bobby shakes his head. "Asshole meant himself."

"So then what does he want? What is he here for?" Jo asks.

There's a dawdling clap and slowly, they all turn around. Crowley is standing there, smiling. And his eyes are black. He blinks at them a little and Dean can see the seam of the all black full-eye lens that the Demons are known to where. There is something very wrong with this picture. Dean had never liked the guy, no, but he'd never suspected this level of treachery.

"What do I want indeed," he drawls walking forward to them.

"You're 'the unknown'," Dean says.

"Mmmhmm, cookie for you?" Crowley says.

Dean's jaw clenches. "Gabe, get Sam out of the way, Ash-"

"On it," both Gabriel and Ash say in unison, herding the other two back and behind Dean's desk.

This only serves to make Crowley laugh. "Fools. I don't want them. You know what I want."

"_Angelus_," Bobby guesses and he guesses correctly by the way that Crowley's eyes widen, the black unnerving everyone in the room except him.

"But we don't know who any of them are," Ellen says, her voice hard, her hand inching for the gun at her waist.

A shot goes off and there's a smoking hole by Ellen's feet. She pales and looks to the Demon in front of her. "Do not even think about it Director Harvelle. Your daughter and lover don't feel like losing you, now do they?" Jo swallows and Bobby glares. A Singer glare is nothing to mess with and Dean would hate to be on the receiving end of one. When he doesn't get a reaction, Crowley growls, "I said, 'do they'?"

"No," Jo says, her voice steely calm.

"What do you think smartass?" Bobby answers less directly. At this point in time, Dean wants to smack Bobby upside the head himself. Rule # 12 his ass. His boss hadn't even been following it.

"Good enough. And to correct you dear Director, there is only _one_ surviving heir of the _Angelus_ in America," Crowley says, sliding an antique gun out of his jacket and waving it around like it was nothing.

Sam stares at him and then says, "You killed him."

Dean makes a face, as Castiel gets closer to him. "What are you talking about, Sammy?"

"He killed Lucifer. That's why Ruby hasn't heard from him. That's why we've never gotten to see you. You've been trying to gain control of the Demons, haven't you?"

Crowley lets out a bawdy laugh. "My, my Samuel Winchester. You have quite the intellect. Nevertheless, you are correct. On all counts." He barks another tone of laughter. "Fancy that."

No one had made a move until then, when Dean snatches Ellen's gun, the closest one to them, and aims it at Crowley. "Now you just back the fuck off, man. And I won't shoot you full of holes like Swiss cheese."

Crowley smiles. "You think you hide your every emotion so well Winchester. In fact, you're like a book and I just took the pleasure in reading you from front to back. And anyways, it's none of you that I'm concerned with." And with that, Crowley's gun goes from aiming at Dean to aiming at-

Castiel takes in a steep breath. His gun, as well as Bobby's and Dean's, is on the side behind Crowley. Dean is the only one besides Crowley with a weapon at this point; Sam's is disposed of behind enemy lines also. The barrel of the gun is wide and although Castiel has faced down a gun before, this time, it feels wrong, final. It's terrifying.

"You see, Castiel Novak is the last heir of the _Angelus_ in America. His great-great-grandfather was the leader of the _Angelus_. That man personally killed my ancestor, the leader of the _Daemonibus_. So you see, my dear agents, it is my destiny to kill Castiel Novak and bring down the dull weight of the Demons on you." Crowley smiles. Then he turns to Dean. "Shoot me and he dies. Faster than I would have done it."

"Dean, shoot him," Castiel says.

But now Dean can't think. Crowley's unwanted interest in Castiel makes sense now, how he's always around when they didn't want him to be, how he messed up their simple missions, how he was here for no reason, all the time.

"Dean shoot-" The words die in Castiel's throat as Meg creeps out from the shadows, Lilith flanking her. Alistair makes it over to Crowley's other side, Azazel flanking him. They all have guns.

"We don't want to kill all of you, just the _Angel_," Crowley says, using the English translation for the first time. "So let us and we'll be on our way."

"No," Dean growls. "You are not going to touch him." His heart is beating so fast. Ellen is frantically looking to Bobby and there's hand motions being made behind backs, Sam whispering to Gabriel. Dean knows that he just needs to buy them time, time enough for Bobby to communicate whatever he needs to to everyone.

"Oh no. I won't be touching him, my bullets will," Crowley says and Meg giggles, her twin, Azazel, laughing the same way.

It's unnerving and Dean doesn't know what to do but scowl at them and look completely terrifying. Castiel just stands there, as still as possible, not looking at anything, no emotion on his face and Dean doesn't like that. He will not let them touch a hair on Castiel's head.

"You have a minute to decide Winchester. Him, or all of you," Crowley says and it seems his patience is wearing thin, like he isn't amused by their heroics anymore. Dean looks to all the Demon faces he sees, how all of their eyes are clad in black contacts. He swallows. He's sick to his stomach. Nothing can happen to Castiel, nothing. If something does, he knows, deep in his heart, that he will not bounce back from it.

"Thirty seconds, Winchester," Crowley says, cocking his gun. There are several other guns trained on Castiel, a few on the rest of them. Dean's gun is sweaty in his palms. Out of the corner of his eyes, he can see the sun starting to rise. The demons would have to leave soon, and damn him if he lets them go without someone being carried out in a body bag. Someone on their side preferably.

Dean feels sweat slide down between his shoulder blades, feels it bead on his brow. He's never been so nervous in his life. Then again, someone he loves has never been in immediate danger like this. He thinks he should be cut a little slack that he's freaking out and not being calm and rational.

"Ten seconds, Winchester," Crowley says, clicking the hammer on his gun back.

What happens next will never be known clearly. All Dean himself remembers is Bobby yelling "NOW YOU IDJITS NOW!" and emptying his gun into the man in black before him. But he isn't the only one who shot.

Castiel falls right into Dean's arms and he rolls them behind his desk. "We did it Cas, we..." Dean trails off as the words get stuck in his throat. Cas's front is covered in deep, crimson blood. There are three holes burrowing their way through his chest. His eyes are glazed over, his mouth opening and closing. Dean can't even comprehend the scene in front of him. He hears screaming and yelling behind him, bullets whizzing around and implanting themselves in walls and people. But he's beyond that. He's not even registering on that level. Everything seems to be going by so slowly, like someone made them all run through water.

Suddenly, a bullet explodes the wooden panel beside him and everything comes crashing down and snaps into focus. Castiel is gasping, his life force pumping out of him by three separate holes in his chest. Dean realizes belatedly that he has only two hands as he rips his dress shirt into strips and presses the white wads to Castiel's chest. Cas's chest convulses as Dean puts pressure and Dean doesn't care if they're winning or losing because the love of his life is slowly slipping away.

"Cas, oh shit Cas, stay with me, c'mon, man, stay with me," Dean yells, pressing down harder, rotating his hands so that he covers all the bullet holes at some point or the other. But the blood keeps pooling and the makeshift bandages can only last so long.

"Dean..."Castiel gasps.

"Shut up," Dean snaps. "Don't talk, don't waste your energy. Don't." His voice is thick and as soon as he hears the gunfire cease, he yells, "Help! Shit, somebody help me!"

Dean doesn't care at this point if Meg showed up and blasted him in the head, although he is grateful when Ash runs over, blood running down his forehead and goes pale. "Special Agent Singer, Director Harvelle. We need an ambulance! We need one now!"

Dean isn't listening, up to his elbows in blood as Sam kneels beside him, Gabe moving the desk over so that Jo can sit too. Ash is doing something to one of the phones, trying to connect it to the main phone line, trying to get around the jammer the Demons had put up on their phone and power lines.

"All the Demon originals are dead," Sam says, although he can see by the way Dean's eyes are wide and there are tears down his face that it is no use.

"Cas," Dean says and Castiel's eyes open. They're glassy and wide, but Castiel smiles anyway, his lips bright pink on his pale, papery skin. "Shit Cas, hold on. We're gonna get help." Somewhere, in the recesses of Dean's mind, he knows that the ambulance won't make it in time.

Jo looks away and dry heaves into a waste bin, leaving the scene. Bobby takes her place. No one can get near Cas though; Dean is hovering, his face too close to the other man's to everyone else. But not to Dean; to Dean, his face isn't close enough. "Cas, damnit Cas! Look at me."

Castiel's hand goes up to cradle Dean's cheek and Dean turns his head into it and places a kiss on his palm. Sam lets out a choke of surprise, as does Gabriel. Ellen and Ash and Jo are oblivious to the scene as they try and break codes to get the phones working again.

"Dean," Castiel starts.

"No. No. You don't get to talk, you're going to say something stupid that's gonna fuck me up," Dean says, his fingers putting painful pressure on Castiel's bullet wounds. "Don't you dare."

Castiel's swallows thickly. "I... I don't care." He grimaces. There are tears in his eyes, but they aren't from pain. "Dean, please listen to me."

"Cas-"

"I love you," Castiel gasps out.

Off to the side, Gabriel swears, "Fuck, what the hell did I miss?"

Sam responds, "No fucking way."

And Dean can only stare at Castiel as he slowly dies. Because Castiel has never, not once, said that he loved Dean, never said 'I love you'. And if he's saying it now, for the first time, damn him if it's the last. "Cas-"

"I..." He coughs and blood stains his lips. "I was going to tell you over dinner t-t-tonight."

"Cas, shut up. Please shut up, they're getting help," Dean says and now he cries. He cries and his body shakes because this can't be happening to him. He finally found someone and now they were being taken away from him.

"Please don't forget that," Castiel says and he's so pale and Dean knows he hurts. But so does Dean's heart.

"I was gonna ask you to marry me," Dean blurts.

Sam mutters, "So it _was_ for him."

"What was?" Gabriel whispers.

"Engagement band," Sam whispers back, as Dean says, "What would you have said if we had gotten there?" Dean can't even see straight and there is just so much blood everywhere. If Dean never sees a single drop of blood again it would be way, way too soon. "Cas, Cas, talk to me, babe. Cas! Castiel!"

"Yes," Castiel says very faintly. He's the color of snow. "For you always yes." And then his eyes close.

Dean clutches the limp body to his and sobs.

Outside, an ambulance screams.

* * *

><p><strong>Originally, i was gonna end it here, but the Henry came over and read it and flipped out and then he got Damon when I said I wasn't changing it and Damon read it and CRIED. My freaking almost-20 year old brother fucking CRIED because of the end, the baby. But i can't stand it when big boys cry or boys in general, it just rubs me the wrong way, so...<strong>

**I decided to write another chapter. Shorter, but sums everything up. So its a two-shot instead of a one shot. Big deal.**

**But apparently it was. Whatever. For boys, my brothers really are bitches.**

**Dean: Yeah, you better right another chapter.**

**Cas: Dean its just a story.**

**Dean: *looks away- thick, quiet voice* I don't care. I hate it when you die.**

**Cas: *symapthy* Dean-**

**Dean: I'm fine.**

**Gabe: You keep telling yourself that, big boy. I was AWESOME.**

**Sam: Is that Sabriel pre-slash i detect, Hearty?**

**Me: *blush* Maybe...**

**Dean&Cas&Sam&Gabe&Eve: *bitch really***

**Me: Yes, ok. It was pre-slash. There will be more in teh next chapter. Everyone happy?**

**Everyone: YESH!**

**Eve: BD**

**Whatever. Review?**


	2. Don't You Cry No More

**Sorry you guys had to wait so long for this. But I've been gone a while, grieving. **

**A good friend of ours has passed on. I think you all know her if you've been following the ever-there Nothing Is Ever Easy. Her name was Pilali. And she has...*steadies self* She's gone. **

**I won't get into it, but she was sick, and that was why multiple times, i wished you all to wish her better. But she didn't and her cousin messaged me a few weeks ago when it occured. I took it very hard. I have avoided the website because it has reminded me of her and i have cried myself a river to drown in. **

**I wish you all to take a look at her art, on Akenia on devientart. Her cousin said he'd finish up some of her art and post it and he deleted her ffn. She drew me some pix for Nothing Is Ever Easy. I'll be picking it up again soon, so if anyone draws and sees her drawings and is moved and inspired (as you should be) then you can message me and maybe you wanna pick up where she left off: drawing for people, creating things. Her family business. **

**So thank you all for your patience. I hope you enjoy this final and short chapter. I just wanted to sum this up and wrap it up. Thank you all for your time. **

**Dean: *moment of silence***

**Cas: *moment of silence and prays***

**Sam: *moment of silence and prays***

**Gabe: *tries for a moment of silence and fails* C'mon guys, she wouldn't want us to be _SAD_! She loved us. She loved _you_.**

**Me: I know. *sighs* So lets do this thing, bitches. *TURNS UP MUSIC VERY LOUD***

**Dean: CARRY ON MY WAYWARD SOOOOOON.**

**Cas: THERE'LL BE PEACE WHEN YOU ARE DOOOOOONE.**

**Gabe: LAY YOUR WEARY HEAD TO REEEEEST.**

**Sam: DON'T YOU CRY NO MOOORE.**

**Everyone: DUNDUN DUNDUN DUN!**

**Current song: Carry On Wayward Son by Kansas**

**Current mood: Trying to remember the good times guys.**

* * *

><p>Castiel wakes up to bright white light and the smell of antiseptic. There's a dull ache in his chest and he can't move. The beeping of machines echo in his ear and he has half a mind to scream in frustration when it doesn't stop after the first few moments. He still doesn't understand where he is.<p>

Castiel looks around and it all finally clicks. He's in a hospital. The shooting, the Demons, the agents, Crowley. And Dean...? He turns his head every which way until he spots the other man, asleep on an uncomfortable plastic chair right beside his bed. Dean's head is lolled to the side and his mouth is open, drool wetting his chin and collar of his shirt in a way that only Mary Winchester and Castiel could find attractive. There are dark bags under his eyes, which means Castiel has been out for a while and Dean has been worrying nonstop. There are new wrinkles around his eyes and they aren't from laughing.

Castiel hates to wake Dean up, but Dean's been worrying and he probably wants to know when Castiel is up and about so he opens his mouth to call to him. Except, he must have been out longer than he thought because his throat is rusty with disuse and he can't make a sound. The dull ache that Castiel had woken up with starts to turn sharp then, and he hisses as it intensifies. There's no morphine button, which tells Castiel that he's either been on a drip IV or a nurse has been administering it. Either way, the pain is coming back and Castiel can't even say that he's uncomfortable.

And as the pain comes, so do more memories...

* * *

><p>Blood, tears, yelling and screaming. That's all that Castiel is aware of. And Dean, Dean is hovering over his body, speaking to him in incoherent sobs. He doesn't understand any of it, just feels the pain that is overwhelming his body.<p>

I love you, he says.

And then everything goes dark.

But the pain rages on, oh it does! It cuts through his unconsciousness deeply and sears through his mind and he prays that he'll just die, because if he doesn't, he surely will go mad. He feels his chest burn and stretch and ache and any second now, Castiel will explode.

He can't stop it, he can't stop it, it'll all end, right now, any second now, he'll explode, he'll-

Castiel jolts awake, his monitors beeping erratically. He must've passed out from the pain. Beside him, Dean shoots up.

"Cas," is the first word out of his mouth, quickly followed by, "HEY, I NEED SOME HELP IN HERE! SOMEBODY!" as Castiel feels the pain seize him and he can't speak still, can't say a word as it makes him immobile.

There are hands and faces he doesn't recognize, but the one he does know is crying and carding fingers through his hair as drugs are pumped into his system, murmuring, "Thank God, thank God."

* * *

><p>Castiel wakes up a few hours later, and this time, Dean is awake. There's a cup of what could be considered coffee, but what's really just caffeinated sludge, in his hands and his eyes are red and track every single one of Castiel's movements as he stirs awake.<p>

"Cas," Dean breathes, but he doesn't touch him, only watches from a safe distance.

"Wh-what happened?" Castiel asks, stuttering over the words. His throat is still dry, but the pain is just a dull throbbing. "Dean, what-"

"He shot you," Dean says, his voice rising as the adrenaline rushes through him again. "Crowley shot you three times in the chest and..." Dean closes his eyes. His voice is wrecked when he speaks again. "And I lost you. For ten whole minutes you were a flat line, another corpse in the cooler." He looks Castiel in the eyes. "I've never been-" And now his voice breaks. "I've never been so ter-terrified, terrified. In my entire - my entire _life_." Dean stutters through, in tatters, in shambles.

Castiel wants to get up, to hold him, to press Dean's rough palm against the warm skin of his chest and let him feel his heartbeat, but he can't move, is afraid to even, after what happened a mere few hours ago. So he can only watch as Dean struggles not to sob again. Watch and feel his heart ache and ask, "How long?"

Dean sniffles and wipes a hand across his nose. "A week and a half. They weren't sure you... they weren't sure you would wake up." The silent, _but _I_ knew you would_ hangs in the air between them and Castiel is thankful that Dean still has that kind of faith in him.

"Where is everyone?" Castiel asks after that. "Is anyone else... hurt?"

Dean shakes his head. "Ash got grazed and Sam got some better-done stitches. Gabe wasn't happy but..." He shrugs. "Besides that...everyone's fine. Oh and Jo got a little surprise with Ash. Apparently, they'd had sex before I got in there. What I walked in on was round _three_." Dean's eyes hit his hairline as he wiggles them.

Castiel's eyes go wide. "She's...?"

Dean nods. "Oh yeah. They were doing some tests on everyone just to be sure and they caught it so damn early. I was surprised and she's still doing a couple of tests. Except, she's a _couple months_ along. So we asked Ash how long they'd been a thing without telling him why we were asking and he said probably six months. _Six months_ and she didn't tell anyone! Neither of them did!"

Castiel feels inclined to point out that they had been dating for almost three years and hadn't told anyone. So he does. At that, Dean's face goes oddly nervous and Castiel itches to ask what was wrong. He ends up just saying it. "Dean... what is the matter?"

Dean looks like he might throw up. "Um... well, everyone knows now. Cas. They _know_. We sorta...declared our undying love for each other. As you..._died_." Dean goes pale as he says that and Castiel sees his hands shaking.

Although he's weak, Cas lifts his hands and beckons Dean to put his own in them. Castiel closes his hands over Dean's and squeezes them once, then twice. "I'm _not_ dead," he says, his voice a bit raspy. "Not yet. Not for a while."

"_Hell_ no," Dean says quietly. "I'm not letting you get that far outta my sight." He licks his lips and seems like he's about to say something.

But Castiel cuts him off and asks, "What happened... to the Demons?" The word itself makes him sick to his stomach and by the look Dean is giving him, the other agent knows and respects all the courage it had taken Castiel to say that one _d-word_.

"_Dead_. All of them except Crowley, although it was close. Bobby trained his people well; I'll give the old fart that. They got those Demon bastards pretty good, with minimal damage to themselves. Bobby almost shot Crowley in the forehead though; Ellen stopped him." Dean sighs. "They gun-whipped him after that and tied him up as the ambulance came in." Dean stops talking.

Castiel knows where his mind is. He squeezes Dean's hands again. "Don't think about it. _Please_ don't think about it. It will only upset you further and I do _not_ want that." Dean nods and swallows hard. He tries very hard to just feel Castiel, right here and right now, and convince himself that this is all he needs to be worrying about. And it works. Castiel sees as Dean visibly relaxes, the tension smoothing down from his shoulders. The other man seems all cried out and Castiel thinks he needs to give him a few more laugh lines and make up for the ones that sprang up from tension and worry, though you couldn't _not_ have tension and worry in their line of work.

"You know, Crowley _still_ violated my personal space and well-being. You never made up for it..." Castiel gives a weak smile as Dean looks up at him, a small grin curling his lips and lifting them up. There are creases on the corners of his eyes and _there_, right _there_. _Those_ will be wrinkles Castiel will remember for an eternity.

Dean leans over and gingerly slides a hand under Castiel's neck, lifting his head up as slowly as possible, and whether its to tease the other man or make sure he doesn't hurt him or even _both_, Castiel feels the anticipation of waiting for those glorious lips on his spike up his adrenaline and heartbeat and make his monitors go crazy.

Dean kisses him and Castiel knows that the readings the nurses will get later on in the evening will baffle them for _ages_.

* * *

><p>The second Dean goes for coffee is when everyone decides to come in. Bobby and Ellen lead the way, with Gabriel and Sam following, Jo and Ash coming up behind them and unsurprisingly, Mary Winchester coming in last, closing the door so they could have some privacy.<p>

"Cassie!" Gabe exclaims loudly, making the latter wince. "Oh, sorry," he whispers.

Sam rolls his eyes and grabs the other man by the wrist and drags him to a chair. There's a moments scuffle and shuffle with Sam demanding Gabe take the chair and then the smaller man shoves him into it and sits on top of his lap happily content. Apparently, by the way Sam just rolls his eyes and adjusts Gabriel so he's more comfortable, and the way everyone blatantly ignores them, this has been going on for a while.

"How're you feeling, sweetheart?" Mary asks him then, moving some hair behind his ear as she takes Dean's seat. Around them, everyone is settling down; Ash and Jo on a low couch, Bobby and Ellen on two more chairs.

Castiel shakes his head, fighting a smile, because damnit, he has the _best_ damn family. "I'm... I am decidedly better, thank you Mary." Castiel had tried calling her Mrs. Winchester once, but she had cut him off and said crossly to, 'call me Mary or so help me, I'll put my saint namesake to shame and throttle you'. He'd liked her instantly.

Mary smiles at him and pats his arm just as Bobby says, "So you idjit boy, where'd you're worse half go?"

Ellen sighs as if he's insufferable and Mary sympathizes with the woman. Castiel knows they're friends and he can see why. "Bobby, would you just shut up about it?"

"Why?" the older man says. "They went against _my_ rules and didn't _tell_ me _and_ he got shot to hell _and-"_

"Damnit Singer, you're giving me a headache," Mary said, a hand to her temple. Sam just rolls his eyes and offers his mother some aspirin, to which she asks, "Why do you have aspirin?"

Sam answers dryly, "When you spend all day with Gabriel, you actually need it."

To which Gabriel calmly retorts, "Yeah, and for other things."

Castiel is going to write it off as a joke, but Sam blushes and Gabriel looks self-satisfied, so he wonders if Dean knows. He turns to where Ash and Jo are sitting quietly. They've been quiet, he realizes, not like either of their personalities. "Ash, Jo. I heard. Congratulations."

Ellen immediately gets wry and says sarcastically, "Oh, right. Because getting pregnant at 22 is exactly what everyone is doing these days."

Ash bites back, "Yeah, it is. At least we're going to do the right thing and raise her right and proper." He looks at Jo pointedly and says, "_Together_."

Jo nods, a bit teary-eyed, and Ellen sobers a bit, Bobby helping out by rubbing her lower back a bit and whispering, "Easy Ellen."

Ellen whispers back, "But that's _my_ baby..." And the rest of the conversation is too low for Castiel to hear.

"So...um... are you guys like, getting married? Or something?" Sam asks, breaking the awkward silence that had formed between them. He looks to Ash and Jo expectantly, shifting Gabriel a bit as his leg gets numb and looses feeling.

"Nah," Jo says. "_Not_ _yet_ I mean. And _hell_, who gets married these days anyways?"

They all freeze then and turn to Castiel, even Mary, and there's a longer silence than before. One of understanding and curiosity this time. He knows what they want to know, but Dean hadn't said anything about it, they hadn't discussed it again. Maybe... he's changed his mind? Castiel sure hasn't.

"_Yes_," Cas says dryly, laying back into the sheets of his bed, watching as Dean walks down the hall a bit despaired at seeing everyone in there with Castiel. "_Who_ indeed."

* * *

><p>Castiel is out of the hospital a few weeks later. He's still sore and his chest is all wrapped up in gauze, but Dean is driving them home and Bobby hasn't fired them yet (Castiel suspects its because he was shot and Dean had taken it so hard), so he counts this as a win.<p>

Except... no, _no_. They're not going home, which is sooo against what Castiel wants to be happening. He wants Dean, under the covers, spooning him manly for warmth. He wants to tell Dean he loves him more than anything, more than life itself. And Dean is driving in a different direction than their apartment complex.

"Dean," Castiel says, making it clear that he is not pleased. "Dean, where are we-"

"We'll be there in a minute," Dean says, and... is he nervous? Yes, Dean is nervous. His voice shakes a bit at the end and his hands are white where they grip the steering wheel. There is something decidedly... _off_ about the situation.

"Dean, whatever it is, you can tell me," Castiel says softly, so as not to spook his partner.

Dean ignores him though and turns up the music before just shutting it off altogether. Castiel resigns himself to lying back in the seat of the Impala and letting his partner drive him wherever it is they were going.

* * *

><p>An hour later, Castiel is shaken awake by Dean and they are at the Roadhouse, Ellen Harvelle's bar and pub. He's confused at first, but then Dean is gently coaxing him out of the car and taking his hand in his own, entwining their fingers. In public. It's such a rare occurrence that Castiel basks in the moment, allowing Dean to lead him into the Roadhouse.<p>

Which is pitch dark.

He feels a tug on his hand and suddenly, the lights are on and above the bar there's a giant banner that says 'WELCOME BACK CASTIEL!'.

"SURPRISE!" is suddenly yelled by all the people behind the bar. Ellen is smiling and Bobby is right beside her, sliding Ash a beer where he sits on the other side. At a side table, Mary sits with Sam and Gabriel, and there's food on the majority of the tables around him. Jo is wearing a t-shirt that says, 'Please Don't Give The Prego Alcohol' and Ash is waving his beer bottle in her face tantalizingly when Jo opts to kiss his lips instead of the bottle.

Castiel is so surprised that he doesn't notice that everyone's gone quiet now until he goes to turn to Dean and finds that his partner is no longer on eye level with him. Castiel feels his heart thundering in his ears as he looks down and there Dean is, Castiel's hand still in his, on one knee and looking up at Castiel shyly.

"So... I never did this properly the first time," Dean says. "I've been told I was shouting and you were indisposed to answer correctly. So." Dean shrugs, but Castiel can tell that this is a big deal for him. Hell, it's a big deal for Castiel. Hell yes, it's a big deal for Dean.

"Dean," he says weakly, because now everyone is watching them, just like last time, except he can answer clearly and Dean can follow through on any promises he makes there.

"Castiel Balthazar Novak, I love you so god-damned much, man, you don't even know the half of it. So." Dean fishes the black box Sam had been messing with out of his pocket and flicks it open with his thumb. "I guess what I'm trying to say is, will you marry me? Before I get shot this time?"

Castiel feels his throat close up, because really? Did Dean really think he needed to ask again? "Yes," Castiel says quietly.

Dean slowly gets up and tilts his head to the side, looking down after a moment, a shy, beaming smile on his face. "You sure?" he asks, rubbing his neck and letting the hand with the ring swing by his side. "'Cause, you know, I'm a pain in the ass to live with-"

"I already live with you," Castiel points out.

"But, like, _forever_. With no apartment next door to escape to when I snore. And Ana would be in the house with us. You think you can handle that?"

Castiel sighs and says, "Dean, I've said once before. I am saying it again: Yes. But ask me one more time and I'll take the ring and leave you." He smiles, because he's joking, but Dean gets the point.

"Um, right, here," he says and his face is red, like he's waiting for Castiel to catch onto something. Mary is smiling and Sam looks like he wants to burst out laughing. Gabriel is already chuckling and whispering to Sam, "Oh, your brother's _dead_."

Castiel let's Dean slip the ring onto his finger, and a thought briefly flits through his mind on how Dena knew his ring size. But that doesn't matter. It's a beautiful piece of jewelry and he looks up to Dean's face, smiling.

Dean is coughing lightly, putting the ring's box to the side. Bobby is chuckling and Ellen is already pouring a drink that Castiel has a sneaking suspicion is for Dean. There was something up.

Ash scoots over and Jo sits with him and whispers, "Ten bucks says that Castiel gets in a minute."

"You're on," Ash says, taking a bill from his wallet and putting it down, Jo doing something similar but taking the bill from her bra.

When Ash gives her a look she shrugs. "What? The Girls keep _all_ my money safe." Ash only rolls his eyes.

Castiel is about to ask what's going on when he goes over Dean and his conversation in his head: Dean proposed, he said yes. Dean went on to make sure Castiel was sure, Castiel pointed out they lived together. Dean said that there'd be no apartment to run to and that Ana was living in the house with them, Castiel said-

Wait a minute, _house_?

"What house?" Castiel asks, his eyes wide. "Dean, we don't have a house. What are you talking about?" At Dean's sheepish look, Castiel blanches. "DEAN!"

"So maybe I put a down payment on that house in the suburbs that you liked so much." He shrugs. "Maybe." Castiel scowls. "Ok, I did," Dean admits rubbing the back of his neck and accepting the drink Ellen was pushing toward him. "You like you're engagement gift?"

Castiel just sits down. Dean bough them a...a...

He bought them a fucking house.

Castiel pinches the bridge of his nose as the party gets into swing and Ellen turns the jukebox on, Mary starting to get people food, Gabriel trying to get to dessert first and Sam verbally disapproving while his mother laughed in the background. Bobby is walking around the bar, catching Ellen by the waist, twirling her for a dance. Ash gets Jo food, the pregnant woman thanking him in-between bites, practically inhaling her food.

Dean brings over home-made burgers for him and Castiel and smiles sheepishly. "You know," Castiel says exasperatedly as the goings on around him fade into the background and its just him and Dean. "We're going to have to talk about this. The buying-things-without-telling-me thing."

Dean laughs and smiles. "Yeah?" He pushes some of Castiel's bangs out of his face.

Castiel smiles a bit, relishing the band on his finger and picking up his burger at the same time Dean does. "Probably not," he admits. "I'll be too busy thanking you when we get home." And the word slides off his tongue so smoothly because he's talking about Dean and everything is good.

Dean chuckles, taking a bite of his burger, but there's a heat in his eyes that Castiel is going to utilize when they get home. _Home_. Home with Dean.

For the first time in a while, Castiel is so glad that he broke Rule 12. He got the best things in his life out of it.

* * *

><p><strong>So. There you have it. I hope you enjoyed this little plot bunny mishap. I hope you all keep Pilali in your prayers. So. Um. Bye guys.<strong>

**Dean: How 'bout one more round of Kansas, yeah?**

**Cas: I would very much enjoy that.**

**Sam: *soft smile* Yeah.**

**Gabe: Then let's get to it!**

**Me: Here we go. *Turns up music so loud that bf wakes up in next room and joins in***

**Dean&Cas: CARRY ON MY WAYWARD SOOOOON.**

**Sam&Gabe: THERE'LL BE PEACE WHEN YOU ARE DOOOOONE.**

**Me&Kincade(my boyfriend): LAY YOUR WEARY HEAD TO REEEEEEEST.**

**Everyone: DON'T YOU CRY NO MOOOOOORE. DUNDUN DUNDUND DUN!**


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